


Your loving is all I think about

by Nedrika



Category: Persona 4
Genre: Community: badbadbathhouse, Dirty Thoughts, M/M, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:55:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22052128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nedrika/pseuds/Nedrika
Summary: Prompt: After fusing the best persona to the justice social link sraosa, Souji discovers that he can now hear what Nanako is thinking. After fusing a few other maxed s. Link personas, he discovers that it also works with futunushi, ishtar, etc... Just as long as he has the persona equipped, he can hear the s. Links thoughts. The things he hears ranges are cute, funny, creepy, embarrassing but nothing really surprising. Until he equips Mada. Yousuke has some REALLY dirty thoughts about Souji. Thoughts that end up turning Souji on and make him want see all Yousuke's fantasies come true. That is if he can get Yousuke out of pretending to not be gay.
Relationships: Hanamura Yosuke/Seta Souji
Comments: 8
Kudos: 207





	Your loving is all I think about

**Author's Note:**

> https://badbadbathouse.livejournal.com/745.html?thread=44009#t44009

It had been a good day. Better than there had been in a long time.

Souji was feeling prepared for the upcoming test, and had spent some time studying with Yukiko and Chie in an atmosphere that was finally calming down into something like a normal school year after all of the tension of catching Adachi. They’d walked off the strain from being hunched over their desks with a short walk along the riverbank and had come back home via a trip to the Velvet Room that gave him some really lucky combinations. Then finally home, to a fully stocked fridge from his shopping yesterday which had resulted in a slightly overindulgent meal with Nanako.

His back had been turned to her as he cleaned off the last of the dishes, the happy sound of her humming along to the Junes theme barely audible over his scrubbing. Things were on their way to being normal again, or the close approximation of normal that he had begun to formulate between the TV dives and disappearances and the slow creeping dismay at the unsolved murders. There was peace now, and he was at peace. He was sleeping at night where before he had been stressed and un-rested, he was awake and more in the moment and all the laughter that came naturally between himself and his friends was no longer laced with the bitter tang of the guilt that hung over them like a particularly pernicious cloud.

'When is Dad coming home?' he heard from behind him. Nanako sounded wistful rather than depressed, another happy change from before. Dojima was coming home on time more regularly, and when he was back late now he would be normally make it through the door before the dinner had even finished cooling and was in the fridge; Nanako saw it now as more of an inconvenience than something that would mar her entire day.

"I'm sure he won't be long now," Souji said, his attention still on drying off the last of the dishes on the stand.

"Who's not going to be long, big bro?" she said, voice bright with expectation. "Are one of your friends coming over? Why didn't they come for dinner?" A gasp, and Souji turned round to face her, lost. "Is Yosuke coming over after his Junes shift? What's he bringing?"

"I meant your dad. You were asking about him, right? He said this morning that he might be late because of the conference call this afternoon, he should be back in a little while."

He watched as Nanako's eyes grew wider and wider, rising up at the table until she was bouncing on her toes, almost frantic in her excitement.

"I didn't say anything, big bro! Is this a magic trick? Show me!"

"It's not a magic trick Nanako," he tried, but she deployed her best puppy dog eyes and the words that would let her down stuck in his throat. 

"Please, please show me big bro..."

When he let out a long sigh of resignation she jumped in victory. She was making a high pitched keening, not unlike the tinnitus that followed a fight with one of the more heavily armoured Shadows, but he settled down at the table opposite her while she attempted to compose herself into a tightly vibrating sitting position. 

"I'm going to think of a number, okay, big bro?" she said, eyes glowing with hope as Souji tried to come up the with the clearest way to either explain his brain imagining her talking to him or guessing his way through whichever trials she had in mind for him when he heard her, as clear as day, saying 'two hundred and thirty eight', while her mouth stayed completely still.

It didn't make any sort of sense, and he couldn't stop the confusion from dragging the answer from his own throat to be answered with a squeal of happiness as Nanako drummed her fists on the table in celebration of her triumph. 

"I knew it! Do it again?" 

She settled down in her seat again and focussed intently on him while he was desperately racking his brain for an explanation. 

There was absolutely no way that Nanako had become an accomplished ventriloquist, and if she had suddenly acquired it to the point where she could flawlessly pull it off he was completely sure that he would be the one being shown the magic trick rather than a ruse to make himself think he was a magician. Once again he heard her voice, intoning 'fifty two' as calmly as she could, though the excited waver gave her away, and all the while she sat motionless except for her darting eyes. 

Could this be some side effect of the TV world? Could she have picked up some sort of attachment to the other dimension beyond what the rest of them had developed during their time in their own dungeons or on the Channel. Heaven had been an unusual place, with the sharing of imaginations between herself and Namatame being unrivalled in strangeness, while her miraculous recovery meant that there must have been an extra edge to her connection to the TV world beyond what the rest of them had known. He would have expected this throwing of her thoughts to have manifested at that time if that was their genesis, rather than having such a long delay. And they had been in the TV world that afternoon, a brief excursion with Teddie and Kanji to keep their skills sharp and fuse some new demons, and there had been nothing unusual going on in there, or at least beyond the normal level of unusual; Teddie would have told him if something had been off. 

"Aww, it wasn't magic," Nanako whispered from the other side of the table, or perhaps she had thought it, and Souji realised with a flash that he had never answered her.

"Fifty two!" he near shouted, and she re-inflated before his eyes.

There was another round of loud happiness and questions he couldn't answer as he suddenly remembered exactly what he had done that day in the Velvet Room: fused a bunch of high level Personas including Sraosha, and he had left the dungeon with him still at the forefront of his mind. He had fused a couple of his final Arcana personas at this point, but rarely paid attention to who he had active in the moment, it was possible that he had lucked out to not have the right combination of person and Persona, and this was the first time it had come up.

It was unlikely, but everything that had happened in the last year was unlikely and he had long ago learned to roll with the punches. 

"Nanako, how about you count to thirty in your head and stop somewhere, and I bet I can guess where you stopped, okay? But if I got it right you have to go and finish your homework."

"Yeah!" she chirped, and off she started, the words clear as day. She was speeding up and slowing down in an attempt to throw him off and he smiled to himself as he switched to a different Persona, the quiet chant of numbers immediately dropping of into the soft silence of evening. When he went back to Sraosha the count continued on as before, confirming it to him as well as he could hope for, just in time for her to count twenty nine and then smile impishly at him, confident that it would throw him off, but when he 'guessed' it just fine she whooped again rather than being disappointed in being caught in her ruse. 

"You're the coolest, big bro! I know a magician never reveals his secrets but you have to tell me if I figure it out, right?"

"Of course I will," he replied, feeling perfectly safe. "I might even show you another if you get all your homework done in good time."

She shot up the stairs in record time, and from the steady buzz of grammar he could make out from half way up the stairs he got a good estimate of the range of his new 'skill', and by the time she was done Dojima was home and she was distracted enough to not ask him to read her mind in front of her dad. 

This thing was dangerous, and he was completely at a loss as to what he should do with it, and if he could do anything at all. There were a couple of Personas that he had either fused and available, in his compendium, or ready to be fused, and so a couple of people that he could theoretically read the minds of. It didn't feel ethical to peer inside the inner workings of his closest friends, and this time there was absolutely no telling whether Igor had set this all up as some elaborate trap to prove his loyalty to them. It didn't seem particularly unlike him to do so. And there was always the possibility that this was a completely normal situation and just added in as an additional 'boon' for those who had solidified their bonds and which he had been given absolutely no clue to. There was so much more to consider than being given the responsibility of telepathy in such a haphazard way, and he balked at the idea of having so much unnecessary power over his friends. A half thought that he should come clean was quickly dismissed, too easy to break the formerly immutable trust that they all had between them. Much better to simply be vigilant and never let the situation arise again. Much safer. All he had to do was be careful to never have final Personas on him, or to keep whomever's he had not active while he was outside of the TV. 

A quick run-through of the strongest bonds he had put most of his fears to rest. He had already fused the upper Personas of most of the other Investigation Team members, as well as a scattering of others, and while he could fuse Sandalphon he hadn't got around to it yet, and had been planning on fusing Asura soon. Under no circumstances was he going to allow himself the opportunity to mess up and read Dojima's mind, which meant that Kohryu would have to stay in his Compendium for the foreseeable future. Even the idea of it sent a new, raw fear through his heart. 

He found himself in a troubled sleep, thoughts of accidentally snooping into people's lives bringing nightmares of the Midnight Channel back to him in full force for some of the worst rest he'd had since Nanako came home from the hospital.

School was barely any better. He kept Sraosha on him at all times, regularly checking he was still equipped as though to ward off any accidental slips into other people's consciousnesses. It seemed to work, lips in synchronisation with sound all throughout the day, and it wasn't until well in the afternoon that he calmed down and could answer the concerns of his friends with somewhat genuine assurances. So it seemed that at least in that aspect he had been correct, and that it wasn't some innate ability that he had unlocked. 

The next day, after a somewhat relaxing evening with his book and Nanako's quizzes to keep him occupied, he decided that he had to at least test the theory that he could do this with the others. There was nothing that could make him attempt something during class, when minds could wander and he could slam head-first into any unguarded secret. He had basketball practice after school, which seemed like a much safer proposition, when schemes for plays and longer strategies couldn't be shouted across the court and would have to be ongoing and internal. 

It was with some trepidation then that he pulled his very new fusion of Zaou-Gongen to the fore, halfway through practice once they had gotten into the groove of the game, and was immediately greeted with Kou's voice rattling around in his head, close enough as though he was whispering directly in Souji's ear. He had expected the match to get him thinking about passes or notes on the form of the team as a whole, but instead was thinking about how the rubber balls were a shameful cost saving measure and he would really have to start campaigning for some new composite balls soon, now that the team had started actually turning up. 

The matter of fact, business style of stream of thought considerations caught him completely off, having been ready for nothing like it, and he was rewarded for his unreadiness by catching one of those same cheap, rubber balls directly on his nose. 

It felt deserved to have underestimated his friend to that degree, or perhaps overestimated the talents of the basketball club to keep him fully engaged, but the sore face was a strong reminder of the dangers of prying for the rest of the day. He was still contemplating it when he realised that he had taken the long, winding route home through the town, and had come to a halt outside of the shrine, to be met with the long, intense stare of the fox. A mad compulsion hit him, and he brought Ongyo-ki to the fore.

He stood there, intent, listening for anything through the restrained hubbub of the street in early evening. He crept closer to the fox and stretched out to rub his ears and he heard it, a quiet murmuring of yips and barks, interspersed by the sound of the shrine bell too close to be the bell itself. He committed to the rubbing of his ears, and laughed at his own foolishness. 

There had been a moment when he had been certain that the fox would be thinking in full, recognisable and understandable sentences, that he would have broken the language barrier between human and animal. The fox was a perfect conundrum as it was, and with the way that things were going it wouldn't have been the strangest thing to happen. It was odd enough that the fox fit into this whole mind reading plan in itself, or that he had formed an unbreakable bond with a vulpine shrine guardian that seemed to be capable of some variety of literacy or forethought, as well as mercantile sense. 

He detached with a final scritch and a yip from the fox, the sound of muted barks following him down the street.

Ong-ki kept him safe for the next couple of days, enough that life settled out and he relaxed about all of these new revelations, and began to treat it as something that could help him help others when he hit a brick wall, but was otherwise a non-issue and easily avoided. They didn't spend any more time in the TV during that time, Souji putting off all the little requests that filtered through to him from both the school and town streets as his reputation as a bit of a fixer and finder filtered sleepily through the populace. It was mostly pretty basic stuff, things found across all the floors rather than in any one particular spot, and would be a bit of a pain to find more than a struggle, perhaps a job for small teams rather than a group, or maybe just a charge through as many dungeons in one go as possible rather than drawing it out. 

By the end of the next week, however, he found himself wondering if there was perhaps a situation in the offing that may have necessitated some intervention.

Yukiko was looking strained, something that had been building for a little while now. He had tried asking her about it but been told there was nothing wrong, and had seen Chie do the same before being turned away in a similar kind but polite way. He'd been carrying Scathach with him for the last few days in the vain hope that he would be prepared for nothing, but when classes ended and Yukiko picked up her bag and made to leave the prospect of saying goodbye with the problem unattended to suddenly felt completely unacceptable. 

He brought out Scathach as they were packing their bags at the end of the day, the classroom loud but their desks quiet in spite of it. Yukiko was drawn, Chie looked concerned and Yosuke had begged a Junes shift that Souji was pretty sure he didn't have and was probably a smokescreen to get out of the oppressive atmosphere. 

The effect was immediate, Yukiko's voice coming through to him half way through a sentence. 

'...have to get all of the sheets folded, which shouldn't take me too long, and will I be able to get through all of them and also demonstrate how to rub down and sterilise the showers? I could ask the staff for help, but they've all looked so busy recently and I don't know how to ask them to do more work when they already do so much for me. I don't have enough experience or authority to be doing this, I'm so over my head and all I can think about is Chie in those new shorts she got where her...'

He detached Scathach with a start, the guilt immediate and deep. He had guessed that it would have been something about the inn, but even after confirming it through underhanded means he still didn't have any idea of how to help, and the sneaking suspicion that he had only got himself out of her head within seconds of hearing what he should never have the opportunity to hear was another deeper guilt that seeped, tar-like, between his ribs. 

It took a few moments for him to gather himself but he made his best attempt. 

"Hey, Yukiko, I've got a free weekend between my part time jobs and Junes, is there anything you need help with at the Inn?"

It felt like a strange thing to ask, even though his insight would have been impossible to guess, but she turned to him with an expression of tired appreciation. 

"Thank you Souji, but I think I'll be fine. It's been a bit of a rough time over there recently but we'll get through it okay. it's just sorting out some new staff because we lost a couple of people over the winter, what with the crimes and their reporting in the press, and our connection to it. Once they get caught up to speed everything will be back to normal again."

"There's no rush for that, is there?" broke in Chie, who had been looking on to catch every word. "It's quiet just now so they have a while before they get their trial by fire. You don't have to be up to perfect working order immediately, you know, hard work over a long time is a better regime than trying to get everything done in a snap."

"I guess you're right," Yukiko said. She didn't look as though she completely believed her, but at least a little did, and a tiny portion of the stress she carried on her shoulders eased from her. "I'm sorry we haven't been hanging out much since the new starts arrived, would you have some time just now? The Inn won't need me immediately, I guess. I can call them up and let them know I'll be along later."

Chie gave a little fist pump as she bounced from foot to foot, and her bag was packed in an instant. "We should go down into town, there's a hairpin set I saw the other day that was totally you..." and then they were gone, Yukiko looking happier already.

He'd hardly done anything, but the guilt was assuaged a little by the knowledge that the fact that the end result of his snooping had been positive.

It was another week before the urge caught him again, this time walking along the Samegawa with the intent of turning in his fishy winnings from the night before when Kanji passed him, his face a storm and completely unaware of Souji even as he called after the hunched figure. 

Kanji paused for a moment to stare menacingly at one of the riverbed cats, and on a spur of the moment decision Souji swapped to Odin, and rather than the stream of curses he would have expected to be behind such an angry expression, some unfortunate encounter with the law or with local punks, instead all he could hear was;

'...mascot was so cute. We have pink felt and fabric at the store, and it should be an easy enough pattern. Would it be googly eyes or should I sew them on as fabric? Ah, but it was a pretty old show, would anyone even be interested if I made them? They're cute as they are though so at least some would sell, and it would be something else to get people into the store. I'll talk to Ma about it, and we might need to change the look and name enough to avoid...' 

Lost, Souji turned around and left Kanji to his thoughts as they turned to complicated pattern designs.

From then it was only a matter of time until it got him into trouble. He was keeping more of his final Personas on him on the off chance it could prove useful and be the first wiggle to loosen someone's worries and fears, or at least avoid misunderstandings that could otherwise cause trouble. He had gradually become better at convincing himself that, while it was still a desperate measure, there were circumstances where it was the lesser evil.

Yosuke had been strange for as long as he'd known him, constantly biting his tongue when their conversation was running smooth, texting him at stupid hours in the morning, or oscillating wildly between insightful inputs to the case and being an incredible idiot when they were just hanging out as friends. Recently, though, he had been strange even for himself. They'd had a sleepover that to Souji's mind had been a success. Studying accomplished, levels gained and food devoured, but in the morning Yosuke had been awkward and halting in a way that he hadn't before, and Souji was determined to fix whatever they'd broken. He liked him enough to go to any lengths including telepathically plucking his past mistakes from Yosuke's brain directly. Liked him too much by most measures, almost certainly including Yosuke's.

He'd made ginger pork for school the next day, cleared his schedule of all conflicts, pulled Mada from out of his Compendium and made his way towards potential ruination.

The invitation to lunch was accepted with the usual enthusiasm, his pre-packed lunch thrown back into his back with something between glee and vindictiveness. There was easy conversation between the two of them on their way to the roof, which fell effortlessly into happy slurping and copious compliments as the box was handed over and began to vanish. Souji began to wonder if he had imagined all of it, or if Yosuke had watched him go eat with someone else and felt some ill-conceived jealousy for home-cooked food. 

And then, completely without warning and almost without his noticing, the conversation died along with the noises of emphatic consumption to leave them in a startling silence. It was the same slump that he had faced more often than he had wanted, and when he surreptitiously glanced over at his best friend there was a curiously blank look on his face, eyes unfocused but intent somewhere in the vague direction of Souji. It felt as though he had made a misstep in the recipe somewhere as well as their relationship and Yosuke was trying to think of a way to let him down easy. 

It was time. If he wasn't thinking about the slight now Souji would eat his own katana, so he grit his teeth, did his best to do a passable impression of normal eating and focussed on Mada. 

It wasn't a slight. 

'-look so soft and shiny from the sauce, could just slip my dick right between them and fuck his throat so deep-'

Souji's chopsticks drove his next bite of rice directly into his cheek where it clung a clear inch from his gaping mouth.

'God, I should wipe that off for him. Be a good friend, clean him up. Lick it off and then work my way down his neck down to-'

He switched to Ong-ki as fast as he could, reaching up to scrub his face clean in quick, jerky motions with his brain still struggling to catch up, his dick even more confused as to whether it should be as interested as it was. 

Yosuke laughed awkwardly, a blush beginning to take hold on his face while Souji was sure that his own was putting it to shame.

"What happened there, dude?" There was nothing about the way he asked that would have led Souji to guess the things that had been imagined mere seconds before, and he couldn't help but wonder how many innocent conversations had interrupted similarly impure fantasies. It was a flattering notion as much as it was a mortifying one.

"Uh, I just remembering the right answer to the pop quiz this morning."

"So even you can fuck up, hey partner?" Yosuke laughed, shifting where he sat. Souji's face grew a little hotter.

He looked closer after that. It explained a lot of the little things that had stumped him for so long; quick looks and light blushes and jokes that trailed away into nothing. It half explained how he acted with Kanji as some massively miscalibrated self defence mechanism, and all of the moments where he had attempted a playful tease with the expectation of a violent rebuttal that ended in a halfhearted shove or muttered swears suddenly came under new light.

He had considered the teasing a safe outlet for his ridiculous crush, that Yosuke's oft-demonstrated heterosexuality and loud protestations should have made his teasing safe, toothless; no real emotional skin in the game if everything was a joke between friends. Partners.

Maybe there had always been something, a vague notion of something shared that he had used as the foundations for building his attachment and misinterpreted as an intrinsic part of their bond, perfectly normal and rational and platonic but instead more. The behaviour taken for granted less about being too recklessly loud and self-aware in the same breath, the criticism of his own nature battling with his desperation for belonging; a more personal realisation in motion than that. 

And now Souji was awkward too; swallowing sentences and overly aware of his own body when Yosuke claps an arm around his shoulders or they sit together to play games. 

It was so much easier when he was sure nothing would come of it, but having been rather violently thrust into the notion that something may indeed come of it and what, or whom, may be coming as a result was a paradigm shift. There was no way to continue as if he didn't know forever, but also no way to come out and admit his own feelings without being rebuffed through that same self-preservation, which was too much to bear thinking about, while confronting Yosuke with his own feelings would be a good way to end up with a broken nose. 

The only way forward that he could see was either to convince Yosuke to say something under his own steam, which seemed close to impossible, or wear down his defences enough that when Souji confessed it would have a better reaction than a punch or flight. Neither had very good prospects.

He started off with the first strategy, to give them both the possibility of a dignified way through this mire. 

It was extraordinary, he thought, that he could be so nervous about this situation when he'd heard evidence of very clear interest himself, impossible to refute. The little Maromi plush he'd bought from Kanji looked harshly down at him, obviously judging the obvious way that he'd made several of Yosuke's favourites for him, arranged to be presently as beautifully as he could manage even if they would only survive mere seconds once he was seated. 

The Dojimas were both out of the house; Nanako to a friend's house and Ryotaro taking the opportunity to get some overtime done. The fuse box had been carefully sabotaged, the fuse and spares hidden out of the way, candles casting a soft glow over the table. 

It was shockingly blatant. He would be lucky to get him in the door without being called on it, but hopefully the rampaging monster that was teen appetites would keep attention away from what he was doing. 

The knock on his door came just a few minutes after the time that Yosuke had given him, shivering from the cold of the night as he struggled out of his jacket and peering in through the gloom of the house at the torch by the chopping board and the dull glow further into the house.

"Hey partner, what is all this?" he asked, breezing through past all of it to pull one of the tempura from the stack in the centre of the table and sucking the coating from it with admirable inelegance. "You've really gone all out!" He wolfed the carrot stick and looked about him in the dark. "And do you need me to nip over to Junes and get a bulb or something? It's a bit gloomy in here."

"There was a fuse blew. Dojima has a store of them somewhere but I couldn't find one where he said they should be. He's bringing one back with him tomorrow but he's out for tonight and Nanako is at a friend's house." 

Yosuke froze for half a heartbeat with his hand still halfway down from his mouth with a strange faraway look before he broke into a grin. "That means loud games for too long." His face fell, "no power."

"I think it's on a separate circuit, most things are working fine other than the lights," Souji called from the kitchen, cursing his stupidity and hoping there was a chance for him to go out at some point later in the evening and switch fuses about.

He brought through the last of the main dishes, steak the size of which would make Chie weep, and there was a look in Yosuke's eye that he could only half convince himself was prompted by the food. It was a bit of a hodgepodge of things that had been given a good reception or a more jealous comment, and he was mostly just hoping that he would make it through without dripping something down himself or saying something he would regret; the variety of the spread was of dwindling importance to him since his careful implementation of a romantic atmosphere had been so effortlessly blown through.

The meal itself was quiet; ravenous hunger on Yosuke's part meant that his mouth was always full, nerves on Souji's keeping his closed. There was the odd comment, but nothing that would be out of place in school conversation over their study notes; just odd lines of gossip or talk of upcoming tests and awful subjects. Souji had no idea how to get the conversation anywhere near where he wanted it to. Mada was always there in reserve but he desperately wanted to avoid having to employ that tactic, especially when considering how well it and conversation had gone before, and the idea of catching something lewd and torpedoing his own chances for advancement was sincerely unappealing. 

Eventually conversation wore its way round to basketball, and suddenly there was a chance on the horizon.

"It's so much easier now that I'm not pretending to date Ai," Souji said, trying to be casual although his heart was beating frantic time. "That whole situation was such a mess already the last thing it needed was us parading through the middle of it."

"And I am still so jealous of you. Like, holy shit man, she's one of the hottest girls in school." Yosuke slid down his chair to stare up, his huge portions finally taking a toll. "I can't understand how you didn't go for her in the end."

Souji shrugged his best non-committal shrug. "I didn't like her like that. She's a friend and that's it, really."

There was a flicker of Yosuke's eyes in what was perhaps supposed to be a subtle glance before he resumed his inspection of the ceiling and Souji continued his inspection of a long, smooth neck and sharp jaw. 

"You never told me who you like, did you?" 

Souji had the distinct memory of answering that question at the group date cafe, but at least their angles shielded the grin that got the better of him. 

"I definitely have, you just weren't listening hard enough."

"Dude, what? When? Was this one of your jokes? Did I have my headphones on? I can't believe we've known each other this long and you say stuff like that when I'm not paying attention. Fuck!"

"You were paying attention for sure," Souji replied, struggling to keep the smugness from his voice. "And it definitely isn't fair that if you asked me and I answered it isn't my fault if you didn't listen, yet you've never returned the favour."

It was a bold offensive, make no mistake, but it was worth a frontal assault to test his defences. He leant into the pool of candlelight, just a little - just enough to make sure that he was visible in the gloom and that Yosuke couldn't look away from him while he considered his position.

"You mean tell you my deepest darkest secrets while you're doing that zoning out thing you do in the TV? How do you know I haven't?" His voice sounded calm, but he'd withdrawn a little from the table to lean back in his seat, arms crossed in a cocky attitude, and it was difficult to make out his expression in the soft shadows that washed out his face.

For a second his conviction wavered; the possibility of confessing and being positively received seemed perfectly plausible. It would be so easy to say in that moment, a normal part of the conversation flow to let it slip out and he could even leave with his dignity intact, an easy retreat always possible despite his pretty obvious date setting. 

He flipped to Mada hoping for the final confidence boost to push him over the edge, and immediately his heart sank. Rather than the quiet confidence that he thought he was reading in the flashes of posture and expression he was getting, all that was in Yosuke's head was a contained but pressurised panic, streams of murmured swears and the maintaining suspicion that he had been rumbled, the thoughts crashing against each other in a cacophony that Souji withdrew himself from hurriedly, trying to cover the burgeoning silence with what he hoped was a carefree laugh as he mirrored Yosuke's posture, backing away from the light.

"I don't zone out in there! I'm thinking, it's different. But you can try that the next time we're in there for a fight, if you're that confident that I can't make anything out."

There was a note of relief in Yosuke's laugh that hurt to hear. He might not have been ready to admit to anything in that moment, but Souji was determined not to give up at the hurdle. After all, this whole friendship and potential relationship had been a long sequence of hurdles and landmines, so it was all a subtle change-up in the same old pattern. 

"In that case, partner, I might not take you up on that. My life is so action-packed that there's probably some world-shattering truths I could tell you that you're safer not to know."

It was impossible to get himself over the sinking sadness that had permeated him through the rest of the eternal hour, from the snippet of Yosuke's internal turmoil to the business-like, utterly platonic dinner, to his hurried exit to 'go feed the cats', to the subdued retreat to Souji's room.

The idea of goading him floated before his eyes for an instant; draping himself over the furniture with his ass out or legs spread, but he couldn't do it. It didn't seem particularly dignified, for one thing, and he'd have to be piggybacking his mind to figure out what best to do. He knew from rigorous experience that Yosuke was most certainly attracted to him and to a high degree, so flaunting himself would be needlessly cruel, and he couldn't see getting him angry and horny was going to do anything but push him further into self-denial. Better to get it over with and confess himself, even if deep in his gut he was sure they would both have an easier time of it if Yosuke was the one to break the seal and get it over with.

He tried to make everything feel as normal as possible as the evening dragged along, but either he was failing to cover up the strange hole in his heart or Yosuke was back in one of his moods - conversation between them in the faint blue light of the CRT was stilted and completely lacking any flow, mere comments on what was happening on the screen before fading out into the suffocating silence. It was a blessing when Yosuke yawned and loudly declared himself exhausted, and that he'd better be heading off for the night.

So, that hadn't worked. He kept thinking of it long afterwards, even though the next day they were the same as ever, turning it over and wondering if there was more he could have done, broached the subject more subtly or pressing harder rather than being scared off; pushing through the initial wave of rejection to press his suit, but there was so much scope for cruelty that in the end he would temporarily convince himself that it could have ended worse and so he was lucky for the outcome he got, and would go back to brooding and thinking up new game plans. He'd spent so long coming up with battle plans that he had considered himself reasonably good at both tactics and strategy, but the mire that he was in now felt like the most intricate puzzle and he was completely stumped.

Surely it couldn't be so hard - from what he'd heard he was a slipped towel away from having his bones jumped. 

Mix tape? Too much scope for misinterpretation.

Letter in locker? Too much scope for assuming a prank.

Any sort of invite to a local event would turn into a team thing in the blink of an eye, so they were all out.

He wasn't particularly worried about being subtle by the time he called up the team to go into the TV in snappy minimalist texts and stomped through into the other reality with only grunted instructions for Yosuke, Naoto and Kanji to join him - his usual team for the more intense sorties designed to wreck shit, and he was pretty sure that within the heat of the battle everything else would fade away. He was beleaguered by the long days of trying to manipulate his best friend into a confession that there was a strong possibility he would never get, punctuated by snooping into his most private thoughts to hear either snippets of sweetly longing sentiments that he savoured or the most intensely pornographic mental scrawl that made his skin burn and his mind race. The worst thing was that even though he had been looking all the more closely for tells there was no way to tell what he would get, the poker face just as bad and seemingly identical for blushing about daydreaming kisses and blushing for imagining being spreadeagled and pounded raw on the floor of the gym showers, but his own morbid curiosity was beginning to rule him, and Mada was getting more and more use as the days past and a budding addiction forming to the hit of appreciation. Very close appreciation. 

He just needed to take out that frustration on something, and it needed to be able to hit him back. The echoes of the riverbank fight were loud in his mind but he tried to not focus on it, while the quiet music that echoed through Heaven began to distract him in ways he certainly didn't want with vivid memories of the last time he had been here.

Once they had a few fights under their belts the rhythm of the fighting began to settle into his bones, and he could think a little clearer. Rather than causing the distraction that he had feared, having Yosuke in such a familiar setting and responding smoothly to his commands helped re-contextualise everything a little bit. This wasn't some super crush or horn dog that he was dealing with; the dependable, capable second in command that had been side by side with him from the beginning, backing him up where he could and calling him out when he needed, even taking hits for him. His partner. This was all nothing to worry about, they would always be alright in the end, even if it did have bumpy bits and fist fights and possibly crying into each others' shoulders. All he had to do was trust in them.

They were half way up Heaven before Souji cracked his first smile, the feel of freedom and the blood rushing in his veins washing away everything else. These guys weren't putting up too much of a fight but they were enough to not feel like a cop-out, and seeing the four of them act as the well oiled machine they always had was soothing, even if it was another reminder of how they all had their own things going on that they were hiding from each other, as before. No number of beef bowls or arcade trips would ever be enough to really get inside people's help. At least without outside help. 

They hit their first bulky fire weakness pretty late in the game. He wasted half a second reconsidering his decision not to bring Yukiko, and reluctantly flicked over to Mada. Maybe the furore of battle would blur the thoughts coming over to him?

Didn't seem so; he was relieved initially to hear the music that Yosuke was singing along to in his head, followed by curses when a hit doesn't land as strongly as he had hoped. There were preempted commands and appreciations of their teammates' skills, and then the odd thought on how cute Souji looked when he was concentrating on changing Personas. Battles took a little longer than was customary.

The comments didn't bother him so much as the songs did. He always had a new one, shoes tapping along with the songs that echoed in Souji's head, but it was the snippets of lyrics that he caught that really frustrated. If Yosuke only knew half the lyrics, of course it would make sense that all to read in his mind would be odd words caught between nonsense English syllables, humming and screeching guitar impersonations. It drove him mad; loud, annoying and adorable in all the same ways as he was as a whole, and added yet more fuel to the fire.

The floors wore on and they all steadily exhausted themselves. As much as he tried to avoid it Mada was turning out to be the best fit against the vast majority of the shadows they were coming up against, and eventually he gave up on swapping over to any others. The distraction was constant, but after a time he could tune it out and reclaim the buzz of the battle so that it was only an intrusion on the long slog between fights. 

Yosuke was tiring too, and it was becoming increasingly obvious through the stream of comments that were coming directly into his head loud enough that even the occasional comments from Rise couldn't drown it out. The team themselves were too tired to talk to each other so he was left alone in Yosuke's head.

'God his ass looks so good when he jogs about like that,' came first, and immediately Souji regretted positioning Yosuke as second in line so that his view was unimpeded. 'What I would give to make it bounce like that on me.'

They would be throwing around Dia after a scrap, checking each other over for missed head wounds; 

'Fuck, I wish I could lick the sweat right off his hairline, the way it clings to him.'

When Yosuke picked him up and Souji bent over with exertion to wheeze out his thanks;

'Wanna make him pant like that right into my ear as I fuck up into his-' cut off by a blast of Maragidyne.

By the time they made it to the Lost Okina he was half mad with it, and he threw himself to the fight with berserk abandon. It was the last hope for a physical release from the turmoil, Mada shelved to let himself sink into the fury and beauty of conflict. 

It was over too soon, and the buzz of relief lasted mere minutes before they were back in the lobby and he turned to catch Yosuke staring at him in abject hunger, all of the tension flooding back into his muscles. He reacted badly, snapped that Kanji needed to do some catch up levelling and would take Yosuke's place for the next dungeon run and ducked out of the television before anything could be said against it. 

He raced up the stairs as soon as he was home to shut himself in his room, and jerked himself off until he was raw and weak.

He was back to square one, but now he'd had his escape route cut off and all he had left was to directly confront the situation. It was exciting and horrifying in equal measure to stare down the barrel of it, the awful chance that he could say the wrong thing and startle him, get himself excommunicated entirely. There was an outside chance that he'd accept it completely and they'd segue smoothly into a dream relationship, but he'd heard enough of Yosuke rebuking himself, and he'd seen enough of his lashing out in denial to have severe doubt. The ball was in his own court to pursue his suit in a way that would leave him room to maneuver, but not too much room, so that they could both keep their pride.

In the end, it was that same battle weariness that was their salvation and deliverance.

He was making the long and slow journey up the road to school the next morning, aching all over and feeling the worse for wear after spending the smallest hours that morning trying to think of a game plan and getting nowhere.

It had been going on forever, and he was no longer sure whether he had any patience left to be tested. 

And yet, the test appeared, a ‘hey partner!’ echoing across the empty street. He fought to keep his back straight and face calm as he rallied himself for the onslaught.

“Hey,” he rasped out when he appeared beside him, voice still tender and torn from endless hours shouting commands and summoning Personas. “You find any time for the assignment last night? I’m beginning to cut it close.”

‘Shit, I want to fuck you so hard you’re hoarse like that,’ he heard in the back of his head - but he was too slow from fatigue, he was too tired of the precarious status quo, and too distracted by what clusterfuck in the Velvet Room had made Mada his active persona as he swapped to something, anything else.

He rolled his shoulder to loosen one of the knots that had made its home there, looked out to the horizon, and very casually dropped a bombshell.

“I wish you would.”

He made it a couple of paces down the road before he noticed Yosuke’s absence; when he looked back he was stock still, face like he’d been slapped and flushing a violent red.

“Would what? You okay, buddy?” he asked as he visibly righted himself and trotted back up to Souji’s side, eyes wide. 

Souji’s mind wended its way through all the possible ways he could pass it off but he didn’t have the energy. He could only commit.

“Fuck me till I’m hoarse.”

“What, what the fuck, I would never…” Yosuke yelped before he snapped his mouth shut.

He went from red to white, hopping from foot to foot as he darted anxious glances around him to the others flowing past him for signs of recognition.

“How do you know?” he whispered, eyes narrowing.

Souji studied the asphalt by his foot. He may have had a lot of ideas and emotions about this new aspect of his abilities, but none of them were pride.

“It seems to be new thing for some of my Personas. Sorry, I normally try and manage them so it doesn’t happen.”

“Good joke, Souji.”

He recoiled from his name, but he was in it now.

“It’s not a joke, and I didn’t mean to.” 

He raised his head to see Yosuke wearing a conflicted expression, his hands in his pockets as he kicked at the ground.

"Well then, exactly how much have you overheard?"

He smiled, just a little, and locked eyes with him.

"Enough that it's given me a lot of ideas."

Yosuke had gone completely still. The street had emptied to silence as they edged closer to being late, but he couldn't bring himself to care, too intent on watching the shock turn to a sly acceptance.

"And how should I know you're not pulling my leg?" Yosuke asked, pulling the words taught in a way Souji could almost let himself believe was flirtatious.

"Think something," he said, equipping Mada as his pulse quickened and the happiness came bubbling through him.

'Fuck my throat,' Yosuke thought, quick as a wink, and that joy burst out of him in a bark of a laugh.

"Not that," he said flatly.

Yosuke gawped.

'Kiss me,' came the next request. 

He grinned at the cliche and closed the distance between them in one quick step, pressing his mouth to open, chapped lips in a chaste gesture. Yosuke startled away from him a half-step; for a gruelling moment Souji thought he'd gone too hard and messed it up forever, but then Yosuke sprang back to life, lunging at him with a kiss full of promises and a mental barrage bursting with even more.


End file.
